


real world quest

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, but just to avoid the expectation of dan anywhere in it - Freeform, i'm still going with tagging it charlie/phil, no actual relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7900951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Phil deserves someone nice. Charlie wants to try, for Phil - Phil, who can't hold his hand but takes him stargazing in the caverns of Tanaris and through Un'Goro while it's raining just because he knows Charlie likes the dinosaurs. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	real world quest

Charlie and Phil have never been on a date. 

They've never held hands in a movie theater. Charlie's never done that anyway, not like that; boys touch and they take but never something so innocent as his hand. 

Phil might hold his hand one day soon when they finally meet up. It'll happen. It was supposed to happen already, but Charlie doesn't want to think of the night and how he didn't answer Phil's phone call and how sad Phil sounded later on. 

Boys aren't always nice to Charlie, but Charlie's not always nice to boys, either. 

Phil deserves someone nice. Charlie wants to try, for Phil - Phil, who can't hold his hand but takes him stargazing in Tanaris and through Un'Goro while it's raining just because he knows Charlie likes the dinosaurs. 

*

The Booty Bay Inn is crowded on a Friday night. 

(Charlie always wants to meet there. The joke has yet to grow old.) 

Phil's signed on but he's not there yet. Charlie flirts with a human near the bar because he's taken all his clothes off and Charlie's a slut for a good looking guy, even in pixel form. 

They don't speak the same language but something of Charlie's intention translates anyway because the armor-stripped human starts to dance in Charlie's general direction. 

Phil speaks for all to see instead of whispering to Charlie. _"Can I buy you a drink, good sir?"_ appears on the screen. 

Something bubbles happy inside of Charlie. " _Depends. Got the good stuff?_ " 

Five jugs of badlands bourbon appears on the inventory screen. 

_"If I give you all the drinks, do I get all the dances_?" Phil asks. He moves his character to stand between Charlie and the still dancing human. 

" _You could have had them anyway, but I never turn down a drink from a cute boy :),_ " Charlie says. _"Let's go to the pier."_

They sit on the pier, whispering back and forth to each other. The boat comes around, unloading and loading again around them, and then it's off in the distance. 

The second time it does it they jump on, only to jump back off at just the last moment they could. They're left in the vastness of the water, pausing to fight off a couple of lurking deep sea monsters before swimming back shore again. 

Sometimes this is all they do. 

Sometimes it almost feels real. 

*

Charlie comes home already hungover, drunken and tired and aching and wanting nothing more than someone to tuck him in and tell him it's okay and make the world stop feeling so scary. 

Everything hurts. Breathing hurts. Existing hurts. 

He's a teenager, all right. Melodrama is allowed. 

He's got three texts from Phil. 

That hurts, too. Because he doesn't know what he wants and he doesn't want to hurt Phil and he thinks of the things he just did with a boy whose name he can't even remember and he thinks of the way Phil smiles at him, for him, in the pictures they send back and forth, and the way Phil so shyly asked what Charlie was doing for Valentine's Day, and the tweet that showed up when Charlie canceled their hesitantly made plans. 

Talking to Phil makes Charlie feel better but it's a Jenga game of lies and half-truths as Charlie tries to avoid doing the absolute opposite to Phil. 

* 

"I'm really bad at dating," Phil confesses to Charlie over the phone. "I just don't know how." 

"Me, too," Charlie says. "I've never been on a date before." 

He would go on a date with Phil if Phil asked. If he did it for real, not just in the game. Charlie would say yes. He wants to say yes. 

"I like you so much," Phil says. He sounds wistful, and then embarrassed. Charlie isn't surprised when he doesn't even really have time to respond before Phil is saying, "Do you want to play some WoW?" 

Charlie wants Phil to ask so badly. Phil never does. 

But there are those moments sometimes, when they're in another world being other people, where it's almost good enough. 

*

Phil has him a present waiting every time Charlie signs in. 

Phil sends him little notes in Charlie's mailbox in the game. 

Phil dresses his character in ridiculous outfits just to make Charlie laugh. 

Phil is lovely in every way that counts and it was always going to come to an end. 

He tells Phil that he slept with Stephen and he doesn't know what it is or what it might be because Stephen said he didn't want a relationship but Stephen held his hand and Charlie's good at taking what he can get when it's offered to him. 

Twenty-eight slot bags and fireworks on a mountain top are nice, but Phil never really offered him anything. Not anything Charlie could reach out and touch, and he wants that - he craves that so much. 

_"Can we still play?"_ Charlie asks, because he's greedy and he can't help but try. 

_"Maybe,_ " Phil texts back. " _I'll let you know_."

*

Charlie signs on at three in the morning after two weeks of avoiding it completely. There are no cute little notes in the mailbox. There are no gifts waiting to be claimed. 

Phil's name is gone from his friendslist, account wiped like it was never there. 

It was something, and now it's nothing - like most things in his life. But Charlie's fine. Everything's fine, just like it always (never) is.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr if you liked this oh ahahah nm no one's gonna fucking read this because it is literally the definition of self-indulgent fic but that's okay bc i loved it and that's all that matters but if you actually read it then here's a cookie](http://slightlydizzier.tumblr.com/post/149629379359/title-real-world-quest-rating-teen-pairing)


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